Pinterest Hires Its First-Ever Head Of Diversity

Pinterest has hired Candice Morgan, formerly of Catalyst, to work as the unicorn startup’s first-ever head of diversity. In her role, Morgan will “help build the programs and teams” Pinterest needs to reach its “creative potential as a company,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp said in a statement.

Morgan, as you can see from the photo on the right, is a black woman. She has ten years’ worth of experience building diverse and inclusive work environments through her work at Catalyst, so it’s safe to say that Pinterest didn’t hire Morgan simply because she is black. But, is it more acceptable to hire a black woman than a white man for a head of diversity role? I don’t know the answer to that, but wanted to put the question out there.

But, perhaps there is no one answer to who is the best fit to fill a diversity role. It might be a case of needing to factor in the entire employee base at the company in order for the role to be as effective as it can be. Meanwhile, others have argued that diversity needs to start at the very top, and that it needs to be a priority for every single employee.

In addition to hiring a head of diversity and inclusion, Pinterest has launched two programs, The Pinterest Apprenticeship Program and Pinterest Engage for engineers from non-traditional tech backgrounds or underrepresented backgrounds.

The apprenticeship program, which starts this quarter, is geared toward people without traditional backgrounds in things like computer science to see what it’s like to be an engineer at Pinterest. The apprenticeships are one year long, with opportunities for long-term employment. Pinterest Engage is an eight-week summer internship program for first-year college students from underrepresented backgrounds studying computer science, computer engineering, software engineering or other related technical majors.

But it turns out that diversity initiatives can be threatening to white people, according to a recent study, and make them believe that women and minorities are being treated fairly. Diversity efforts also don’t necessarily help someone from an underrepresented group to feel more included and less at risk for discrimination.

The solution, the study says, is to employ data-driven, research-based strategies with measurable goals — something Pinterest is working on with diversity and inclusion strategy startup Paradigm.

In July, Pinterest announced its partnership with Paradigm, its plan for a more diverse company, and it set the following goals: increase hiring rates for full-time engineering roles to 30 percent female, increase hiring rates for full-time engineers to 8 percent from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds; increase hiring rates for non-engineering roles to 12 percent from underrepresented backgrounds; and implement a Rooney Rule requirement where at least one person from an underrepresented background and one female candidate is interviewed for every open leadership position.

Company-wide, Pinterest is 49 percent white and 43 percent Asian in the U.S., and 58 percent male worldwide. In leadership roles in the U.S., 47 percent of top-level employees are white, 42 percent are Asian and 0 percent are black or Hispanic.